TOKYO, April 20 (Reuters) - Shareholders of Olympus Corp approved a new board on Friday, hoping for a fresh start at the camera and medical device maker that hid $1.7 billion of investment losses in Japan's biggest corporate scandal in decades.

At a sometimes rowdy extraordinary meeting in a Tokyo hotel, local institutional investors and Olympus' lenders and suppliers voted for a new management slate and approved five years' worth of restated company accounts.